The golden-white inheritance light trembled in Fang Ming's hand.
Food path.
A path that did not look violent on the surface, yet decided whether armies survived, whether Gu could be fed, whether immortal apertures prospered, and whether resources could turn from scattered gains into lasting foundation.
The inheritance was vast.
Gu recipes, feeding methods, resource cycles, beast-raising structures, Gu-feeding pools, sustenance formations, and immortal aperture management systems poured into Fang Ming's mind and storage Gu like a river. It was not something he could digest immediately. Even with his current mind and preparation, this inheritance would take years to fully understand.
But he did not need to understand it now.
He only needed to obtain it.
The golden-white light dimmed, then vanished into his possession.
Fang Ming opened his eyes inside the true inheritance secluded domain. Around him, countless inheritance lights still drifted through the dark void like stars in a night without sky or earth. Some were gentle. Some were violent. Some carried a pressure that made even his strengthened soul feel danger.
He did not chase them.
Greed had to end somewhere.
He had obtained Steel Body inheritance earlier. He had obtained Counterfeit Human Qi Gu. He had borrowed fortune from Ma Hong Yun. Now he had seized the food path inheritance he once refused.
This was enough.
For now.
Fang Ming slowly exhaled.
His body felt heavy.
Not from exhaustion, but from fullness.
The Great Strength True Martial Physique had already transformed him completely. His aperture was full, his strength path dao marks flowed naturally, and every breath carried the sense of power pressing against the limits of a mortal body.
That power was not patient.
It wanted release.
It wanted ascension.
If Fang Ming delayed too long, it would not wait politely. It would tear him apart from within.
But he still did not start.
Not yet.
Fang Ming sat cross-legged in the dark void. He calmed his breathing, lowered his heart rate, and forced the violent strength in his body to settle. Steel Body Gu rested within him, silent but heavy. Lesser Human Qi Gu floated quietly in his thoughts, like a pale bead of mist waiting for the right moment.
He inspected everything.
Body.
Soul.
Aperture.
Dao marks.
Primeval essence.
Gu worms.
Mental state.
No step could be careless.
Breaking through to Gu Immortal was already a walk over an abyss. Breaking through with a ten extreme physique was far worse. Fang Ming had watched Tai Bai Yun Sheng's ascension carefully, but he knew very well that Tai Bai Yun Sheng's experience could only serve as reference.
Tai Bai Yun Sheng had been old, desperate, and deeply accumulated.
Fang Ming was different.
He carried Great Strength True Martial Physique.
Once he began, heaven and earth would not respond gently.
His calamity would be terrifying.
Even with Steel Body Gu, even with Lesser Human Qi Gu, even with improved luck, even with food path knowledge for the future, he did not believe this ascension would be easy.
In fact, it might be worse than Fang Yuan's.
Fang Yuan was experienced. Fang Yuan had Mo Yao's will, five hundred years of memories, ruthless decisiveness, and the ability to fight while gambling with his life.
Fang Ming was not Fang Yuan.
He could fight.
He could scheme.
But fighting while ascending was not something he wanted to test.
So he waited.
The void around him shook faintly.
In the distance, one inheritance light changed direction suddenly, fleeing from some invisible pressure. Another light slowed, then sped up, as if the entire secluded domain had sensed something outside.
Fang Ming's eyes opened.
The battlefield had shifted again.
Outside the true inheritance secluded domain, Fang Yuan had begun moving toward his final gamble.
Fang Ming could not see every detail, but he did not need to.
He could feel the pressure of heaven and earth beginning to stir in another direction.
A mortal breaking his aperture.
Heaven qi descending.
Earth qi rising.
The first signs of immortal ascension.
Fang Yuan had started.
A faint smile appeared on Fang Ming's face.
"Good."
Now the blade had been drawn.
Now Giant Sun's will would look elsewhere.
The moment Fang Yuan began ascending inside Eighty-Eight True Yang Building, the effect was immediate.
A furious roar shook the true inheritance secluded domain, so loud that several inheritance lights trembled and changed course.
"Fang Yuan! You dare!"
Giant Sun's will was enraged.
Another immortal ascension inside this already collapsing situation was not a small matter. Tai Bai Yun Sheng's ascension had already drained Imperial Court blessed land, weakened Frost Jade Peacock, and dragged tribulations into Eighty-Eight True Yang Building. Fang Yuan beginning ascension now would attract new heaven qi and earth qi, new calamity, and possibly cause the existing disasters to mutate further.
The entire building groaned.
Fang Ming remained still.
He could almost imagine the scene outside.
Giant Sun's will ordering everyone to attack Fang Yuan.
Hei Lou Lan rushing forward with his Great Strength True Martial Physique.
Tai Bai Yun Sheng being forced into another desperate role.
Fang Yuan laughing, fighting, and breaking through like a madman in the center of the storm.
Good.
Let them chase him.
Let Giant Sun's will rage at him.
Let Hei Lou Lan and the others focus on stopping him first.
Fang Ming had no intention of sharing Fang Yuan's treatment.
He was not going to declare his ascension under everyone's eyes and fight through the process with fists and tricks. His path was different.
Fang Yuan used chaos by standing in the center of it.
Fang Ming used chaos by waiting until the center looked away.
The pressure outside grew stronger.
Heaven qi and earth qi moved violently toward Fang Yuan's direction, and Giant Sun's will reacted like an ancient beast whose wound had been torn open. The inheritance domain trembled again. A few weaker true inheritance lights scattered like frightened birds.
Fang Ming slowly rose to his feet.
His breathing was calm.
His eyes were steady.
There was no more reason to wait.
If he delayed, the chance might close. If Giant Sun's will suppressed Fang Yuan too quickly, attention would return. If Fang Yuan's ascension caused a change too violent to endure, the true inheritance secluded domain itself might become too unstable.
This was the narrow gap.
He had to step into it.
Fang Ming placed one hand over his abdomen.
His aperture was full.
Completely full.
The Great Strength True Martial Physique had pushed it to the edge. Primeval essence churned inside like a sealed sea, and strength path power pressed against its walls from every direction.
For months, this aperture had been both foundation and cage.
Now it had to break.
Fang Ming closed his eyes.
He remembered Tai Bai Yun Sheng floating between heaven and earth, white human qi surging around him. He remembered the danger of greed during Great Dao inspiration. He remembered human qi weakening, calamity forming, internal tribulation appearing, blessed land territory being cut away for survival.
He remembered every lesson.
Then he let them sink beneath calm.
Knowledge was useful.
Fear was not.
His fingers tightened slightly.
Crack.
The sound did not come from outside.
It came from within.
His aperture began to fracture.
Pain spread through his body instantly, but Fang Ming did not move. Compared with the agony of his physique transformation, this pain was different. That pain had remade his body. This one was tearing open the root of his cultivation.
Crack.
Another fracture appeared.
Primeval essence surged violently, slamming against the broken walls.
There was no retreat now.
Once a Gu Master shattered their aperture, they either rose into immortality or died.
Fang Ming opened his eyes.
They were calm, almost cold.
"Begin."
The aperture shattered.
At that instant, heaven and earth responded.
Clear heaven qi descended from above the void.
Dense earth qi rose from below, even though the true inheritance secluded domain had no real earth.
The two forces appeared because the world itself had answered the act of ascension. Space trembled around Fang Ming. True inheritance lights in the distance veered away, unwilling to approach the forming vortex.
Then Fang Ming's human qi erupted.
It was not like Tai Bai Yun Sheng's human qi.
Tai Bai Yun Sheng's human qi had been vast and deep, filled with the weight of a long life, countless experiences, regrets, kindness, and failures.
Fang Ming's human qi was younger.
But it was violent.
The Great Strength True Martial Physique turned his human qi into something like a roaring furnace. It burst out from his body in thick waves, heavy with strength path aura. His muscles tightened, his bones rang, and the dao marks in his body stirred as if awakening to a feast.
Heaven qi fell.
Earth qi rose.
Human qi surged.
The three forces collided around him.
Fang Ming's expression changed for the first time.
Heavy.
Too heavy.
Even though he had prepared himself, even though he had expected the ten extreme physique to be difficult, the first collision of the three qi was far more violent than Tai Bai Yun Sheng's opening stage.
His body shook.
The shattered aperture pulled at the three qi like a hungry abyss.
The Great Strength True Martial Physique amplified everything.
The heaven qi became sharper.
The earth qi became heavier.
His human qi became harder to restrain.
Fang Ming immediately understood.
His improved luck had not made the calamity gentle.
It had merely given him this timing.
A moment where others were too busy to stop him.
A moment where Fang Yuan drew the killing intent.
A moment where Giant Sun's will had to bear more than one disaster at once.
That was enough.
Luck did not need to make the road easy.
It only needed to open the road.
Fang Ming focused.
He did not activate Lesser Human Qi Gu.
Not yet.
His human qi was not lacking. If anything, it was too fierce. Adding more now would be suicide. The counterfeit Gu could only add human qi; it could not take it back.
Timing.
Control.
Restraint.
The lessons from Tai Bai Yun Sheng's ascension returned one by one, but Fang Ming did not let them distract him. He guided the heaven qi downward, allowed the earth qi to rise more slowly, and compressed his human qi inward, trying to prevent it from overwhelming the other two.
The three qi resisted.
They were not tame things.
Heaven qi wanted to lift him apart.
Earth qi wanted to bury him.
Human qi wanted to explode outward through flesh and bone.
Fang Ming clenched his teeth.
Steel Body Gu trembled faintly.
The inheritance methods he had studied helped stabilize his body. His flesh gained a faint metallic firmness, not from fully activating the Immortal Gu, but from the resonance between his physique, dao marks, and Steel Body foundation.
His body endured.
For now.
Outside, Eighty-Eight True Yang Building shook violently again.
Fang Yuan's ascension had already drawn Giant Sun's fury. Now another ascension had begun in the true inheritance secluded domain, and although Fang Ming's aura was hidden deeper, the reaction of heaven and earth could not be concealed forever.
The building groaned under the pressure.
The main Giant Sun will was still resisting calamity outside.
The smaller will was tangled with Fang Yuan's methods.
Frost Jade Peacock struggled.
The luck path supreme true inheritance had moved toward Ma Hong Yun.
And now Fang Ming had broken his aperture.
A second new vortex formed inside the chaos.
Fang Ming felt the pressure around him increase sharply.
The true inheritance secluded domain was not a safe place to ascend.
But that was precisely why he had chosen it.
If he ascended outside, the calamity would fall on him alone.
Here, the burden would be tangled with Eighty-Eight True Yang Building, Giant Sun's arrangements, and the ongoing collapse of the battlefield.
He was not seeking safety.
He was redirecting danger.
Let Giant Sun bear part of heaven and earth's anger.
Let True Yang Building groan under the weight.
Let Fang Yuan's madness cover his own gamble.
Fang Ming's human qi surged again, nearly breaking the fragile balance.
His face paled.
He immediately suppressed the urge to use Lesser Human Qi Gu. The Gu was a lifesaving tool only when human qi fell short. At this stage, it was a poison disguised as help.
Heaven qi, earth qi, and human qi revolved faster.
The first fusion began.
Fang Ming's body slowly rose from the darkness of the secluded domain. His robes fluttered without wind. His brown eyes reflected three colors of qi, and his expression became completely focused.
There was no Fang Yuan here to deceive enemies.
No Ma Hong Yun to borrow luck from.
No Hei Lou Lan to draw attacks.
No Tai Bai Yun Sheng to serve as an example anymore.
Only Fang Ming.
His broken aperture.
His ten extreme physique.
His preparation.
And the violent three qi that would either build his immortal foundation or tear him apart.
Far away, another roar shook the void.
Giant Sun's will had noticed.
But it was too late to stop the beginning.
Fang Ming's lips curved slightly.
Not in arrogance.
Not in joy.
In acceptance.
The road had opened.
Now he had to survive it.